Saturday, October 16, 2010

It is now six weeks since an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale hit my home city of Christchurch.

I was in Auckland working when the earthquake struck so, naturally, I was very worried about the safety of my family who were experiencing this frightening event. I don't know whether it was worse to be going through the earthquake with my family or being separated from them.

It has been a strange time in the aftermath of this natural disaster. All the schools were closed for the first week and then, when I was hoping to re-establish some "normality" in my life, my oldest son got sick for this entire week. Then the whole family got sick in the latter half of this week.

Things have got back to some kind of "normal", but conversations are still peppered with quake talk and many people are in limbo waiting for decisions on their damaged land and homes. Sometimes it feels like a mini-Katrina, but I don't think we've been quite as neglected.

Many lovely old buildings are in ruins, many people have lost their livelihoods, streets are still blocked off in the central city and just when we think it's over, Mother Nature gives us another aftershock as if it say, "Ha, ha, fooled you!"